Whoever becomes a professional tennis player in Germany has to live with being measured time and again by the successes of Boris Becker;

at least if he is as good a tennis professional as Alexander Zverev.

Becker is the “benchmark”, still the frame of reference for everything that has to do with tennis.

Together with Steffi Graf, he made the sport popular in the first place in this country.

That has an effect.

Til today.

Pirmin Clossé

Sports editor.

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Alexander Zverev, a very good and very successful tennis player, had to keep listening to what he was missing in order to become a really great player.

First and foremost: an important title, preferably won at one of the four prestigious Grand Slam tournaments.

Preferably at Wimbledon, of course.

In Becker's “living room”.

Then, according to the popular opinion, Zverev would finally become really well known.

Born in Hamburg and the youngest member of a Russian family of athletes, he has already won several major tournaments.

He was already number three in the world rankings.

Last year he was in the final of the US Open and lost very close.

But the 24-year-old young man had not yet really arrived in the German public's collective sports consciousness.

Olympic champion in singles

That was also because he polarized. Some thought he was arrogant, a spoiled young millionaire who had lived in Monte Carlo since his teenage days. His private life also made headlines. A former partner accused him of physical and emotional violence, which he vehemently denies. He had a child with another former girlfriend at the beginning of the year. She complained that he didn't care enough.

It goes better on the tennis court.

Alexander Zverev has now achieved something there that not even Boris Becker.

Something that, apart from Steffi Graf, has never succeeded in any German tennis professional.

He is an Olympic champion, and that in singles.

Becker won gold in doubles with Michael Stich in Barcelona in 1992.

But he had never succeeded on his own.

And the individual, as it is in tennis, is still what really matters.

Zverev's triumph in Tokyo has catapulted him into the premier league of German sports celebrities.

His credible enthusiasm for the Games and his outstanding achievements earned him sympathy.

Above all, his victory in the semifinals against the Serb Novak Djokovic, perhaps the best tennis player in history, will remain one of the defining German Olympic moments.

In contrast, Zverev's final victory on Sunday against the Russian Karen Khachanov was almost a must. What he is missing now is only the long-awaited victory in a Grand Slam tournament. The last German who succeeded in this was Boris Becker.